Innovative niches for sustainability transitions : how social agriculture and food start-ups can transform the food system — a case-based research study from Germany

Sammanfattning: To stay within our planet’s limits and reach the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, there is an urgent need to rethink our current and dominant systems. This thesis focuses on the food system, in particular, and explores how an overarching turnaround in the way we produce and consume food has the potential to trigger and steer a greater transition towards sustainability. However, this is a complex task, involving a multitude of actors on diverse levels. More concrete, I investigate the role of social start-ups in the German agriculture and food sector and identify the challenges they face when growing into the existing market. In a second step, this thesis reveals a set of best practice strategies to overcome these barriers. In my qualitative research, I make use of socio-technical transitions frameworks that structure the intertwined actor-network. The Multi-Level Perspective is used to identify different levels of actors. It is complemented by the theory of Strategic Niche Management and the Power in transition framework, putting the empirical results from semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and a literature review into perspective. My empirical findings reveal that the main barrier that the start-ups are facing is the reinforcive power of the regime, mainly economically in terms of financial resources, and politically in the form of legal restrictions and requirements. To overcome these, the interviewed start-ups are boosting their own innovative power and personal motivation. Collaborating with the regime actors, they combine the innovative and reinforcive power and thus trigger transformative processes in the food system. Ultimately, I develop further recommendations for niche and regime players that shall guide them in contributing to a sustainable transformation. The main recommendations are being proactive, communicating barriers clearly and transparently, offering and making use of physical and mental spaces, encouraging diversity and learning by doing.